


Forever

by Elwyne



Category: Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-09 00:09:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1961451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elwyne/pseuds/Elwyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After many years together, Rose and her Doctor face the end of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever

"Traveling with you. I love it."

She didn't say it, but the words lingered on her lips and in her heart. She entwined her fingers with his, the tall slender man gazing up at the stars beside her. He glanced down with a smile.

"Brilliant, eh?"

She returned the smile, nodding, and turned her eyes back to the sky. The Milky Way spread across the dome like magic, its billion glittering points dancing and merging, blending together like some glorious cosmic splat. Around them the desert sang its own song, the soft hum of hidden life, the settling of sand. A breeze rattled the canvas of their tent. She shivered, and he pulled her close, wrapping his arm warmly about her shoulders.

I don't know what I'm going to do without you, she didn't say.

He'd already outlived his diagnosis, standing on his own two feet by pure stubbornness. She almost allowed herself to hope. But she could see it in his smile: the pain eating him away inside, the weakness growing daily. She leaned her head on his shoulder and forced herself not to cry.

"I can see one hundred thousand light years," she said.

"The original time travel," he answered cheerily. "Entire worlds out there have been born, lived, and died in the time it took their light to reach us. We might be looking at the beginning of a civilization ten thousand years dead."

"They might be looking at us."

"And all they see is a few scattered campfires. Homo sapiens struggling to survive the last ice age. The things they could tell us, if we could ever meet."

She heard the wistfulness in his voice. Even after all these years, he'd never truly gotten over his loss.

Abruptly he turned his head, looking past the campsite into the empty darkness. "Did you hear that?"

"What?" She turned to follow his gaze, straining her ears. When she heard it -

\- that familiar wheezing groaning noise -

\- that impossible sound -

\- the music of hope and possibility -

her heart began to race.

"It can't be," she said, and yet it was, materializing before their very eyes. Blue shimmered against black, lights blazing, here and gone and here again, suddenly, undeniably real. The blue police box stood slightly cockeyed on the edge of a rise, as solid and sincere as the fragile hand that clung to hers.

Rose held her breath. The door opened. White light spilled out; then a man appeared, tall, silver-haired, with gaunt features and a coat that flowed over his shoulders like a cape. The door fell shut behind him, and the starlight shone in his eyes.

"Rose Tyler," he rasped. His voice was coarse but strong, and somehow strangely familiar.

"Doctor?"

"Aye." He turned his razor gaze on the man beside her. "Doctor?"

"Yes," her Doctor said. "I am."

The other man straightened his shoulders. "It's time."

"I know." The Doctor turned to Rose, a hundred emotions in his eyes. She blinked back tears. "I'm sorry," he said.

She bit her lip. "It's not your fault, Doctor. It's not. And you know what? I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

He smiled, radiant and brittle with pain. "Rose Tyler..."

"Yes, Doctor?"

"I love you." He took her in his arms and kissed her with all the passion of the years they'd spent, together and apart, in this universe and every other. Centuries passed in an instant, and the instant lasted a thousand years.

When he let her go, she felt like a child again, as old as the stars.

"Goodbye," he whispered.

"Goodbye." Tears streamed down her face as she watched him walk past his future self, into the TARDIS light. As he vanished, the other man met her eye.

"How long are you going to stay with me?" he barked.

"Forever," she cried.

He nodded curtly, and then he too was gone. Rose stood alone in the chill desert night, sobbing as the TARDIS faded from view for the very last time.

 

She woke up in her own bed. The Doctor lay beside her, eyes closed, a peaceful smile on his still lips. She brushed his cheek with a trembling hand.

It was cold. The Doctor was gone.

Tears spilled down her cheeks as she bent down to murmur in his ear. "I love you."

Somewhere in her heart she heard the answer.

"Forever."


End file.
